INVITED SPEAKERS

Javier AIZPURUA

Title

Addressing light-matter interaction at the nanoscale

Bio

Javier Aizpurua is an Ikerbasque research professor at Donostia International Physics Center (DIPC) in San Sebastián and distinguished researcher at the University of the Basque Country, leading the "Theory of Nanophotonics Group", where he studies interactions between light and matter at the nanoscale. He previously worked at the Center for Materials Physics of CSIC, Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in the US. He has published more than 200 works on the topic of nanoplasmonics, particularly in the area of nanoantenna-enhanced microscopy and spectroscopy, with particular emphasis on quantum surface effects in plasmonics.

Summary

A metallic nanogap is a superb configuration to explore the interplay between light and matter. Light scattered off,or emitted from a nanogap carries the information of the surrounding electromagnetic environment with it. This situation becomes even more appealing when a molecule is located in the gap of the plasmonic cavity or in its proximity, with the molecule playing an active role either in the electromagnetic coupling with the cavity, or even partici- pating in processes of charge injection and transfer, as revealed through cutting-edge molecular spectroscopy.

In this talk, the process of interaction between a molecular emitter and a nanocavity will addressed by means of different theoretical frameworks which involve aspects of condensed matter physics, quantum chemistry, and cavity-quantum electrodynamics.
A battery of methodologies to address the dynamics of electrons photo-emitted from nanogaps, ultra resolution in atomic-scale photoluminescence, or non-linear regimes in molecular optomechanics will be described, and many of the theoretical insights obtained will be interpreted in the context of state-of-the-art experimental results in nanophotonics.

Ricardo DÍEZ MUIÑO

Title

La revolución cuántica en el siglo XXI

Bio

Ricardo Díez Muiño holds a PhD degree in physics by the University of the Basque Country. He further developed his scientific career at the University of Bordeaux (France) and at the LBNL (Berkeley, USA). Díez Muiño later joined, as a CSIC researcher, the Centro de Física de Materiales (CSIC-UPV/EHU) where he served as Deputy Director (2005 – 2011) and Director (2011 – 2015). He is currently Ikerbasque Professor and Director (since 2013) of the Donostia International Physics Center. His main fields of research are chemical physics and condensed matter theory, in particular molecular dynamics at surfaces, the theory of electronic excitations, and the theory of photoemission and photoelectron diffraction. He has published more than 120 scientific articles, as well as two books. Díez Muiño has been the organizer or coorganizer of 5 international conferences. He is Vicepresident of Euskampus Campus of Excellence, Board Member of CIC nanoGUNE, and very active in science communication activities.

Yolanda PREZADO

Title

Winds of change in radiotherapy, or how physics modulates biological response

Bio

Yolanda Prezado is a research director at the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) and head of the interdisciplinary team New Approaches in Radiotherapy (NARA), based at Institut Curie (France). She has a multidisciplinary background. She received her Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain, in 2003. She is a Medical Physics expert (board certified in Spain and France). She did her Medical Physics residency at Hospital of Salamanca (Spain, 2004-2007), and later worked at Hospital of Pamplona until she was recruited as a beamline scientist at the Biomedical Beamline at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility. Since 2011 she has been a permanent scientist at the CNRS.

Her main interests are innovative radiotherapy techniques, combined radio-immunotherapies, radiobiology, and small field dosimetry. Her main focus are spatially fractionated radiation therapy and proton therapy. One of their main projects is proton minibeam radiation therapy, funded by the European Union via an ERC consolidator grant. She has been the chair of the scientific committee of the European Federation of Medical Physicists from 2019 to 2021 and is the deputy spokesperson of the International Biophysics Collaboration. She has served on many committees and working groups. Her work in proton therapy has been rewarded with the Mr et Mme Peyre prize of the French Academy of Sciences in 2021.

Sayeeff SALAHUDDIN

Title

CMOS+X: Functional Materials for Energy Efficient Electronics

Bio

S. Salahuddin is the TSMC Distinguished Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at the University of California Berkeley. His group explores physics for low power electronic and spintronic devices. He is mostly known for the discovery of the Negative Capacitance effect that shows substantial promise for logic, memory and energy storage devices. Salahuddin received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientist and Engineers (PECASE) from President Obama. Salahuddin also received several other awards including the National Science Foundation CAREER award, the IEEE Nanotechnology Early Career Award, the Young Investigator Awards from the Airforce Office of Scientific Research and the Army Research Office, and the IEEE George E Smith Award. Salahuddin is a co-director of the Berkeley Device Modeling Center (BDMC) and Berkeley Center for Negative Capacitance Transistors (BCNCT). Salahuddin was also a co-director of ASCENT, which is a flagship device technology effort in the US, jointly supported by SRC and DARPA. He served as the chair the IEEE Electron Devices Society committee on Nanotechnology (2014-16) and is currently the Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Electron Devices Letters, the premier journal for electron devices. Salahuddin is a Fellow of the IEEE and the APS.

Ignacio CIRAC

Title

Quantum technologies: a dream or a reality

Bio

J. Ignacio Cirac is a Spanish physicist, director of Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics in Germany, and a Board Member of Telefonica S.A. He is an expert in quantum computing and communication. With his collaborators, he introduced the first theoretical proposals of quantum computing, simulation, and repeaters, and developed a theory of tensor networks to solve problems quantum physics. He studied theoretical physics and gained his PhD at the University Complutense of Madrid. After a postdoc at JILA (Boulder, US) and becoming Associate Professor at the University of Castilla-La Mancha (Spain) he became Professor of Theoretical Physics at the University of Innsbruck (Austria) in 1996. Since 2001 he is director of the Theory Division at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics in Garching (Germany) and Honorary Professor at the Technical University of Munich.

He is the director of the International Max-Planck Research School on Quantum Science and Technology, co-speaker of the Munich Center for Quantum Science and Technology, and coordinates the consortium on theoretical quantum computing in the Munich Quantum Valley. For his work he has been awarded several prizes, among them the Prince of Asturias, the BBVA frontiers of knowledge, the Benjamin Franklin Medal, the Wolf Prize, and the Max-Planck Medal. He is a member of the Spanish, Bavarian, and German Academies of Sciences, and holds eight honorary doctor degrees.

Jorge MIRA

Title

La transmisión al público de opiniones basadas en la ciencia: un nuevo giro en una vieja batalla

Bio

Jorge Mira Pérez is a full professor of electromagnetism at the faculty of physics of the University of Santiago de Compostela (USC). His research has focused on materials science, dynamics of social systems, medical-related areas, and electrical and civil engineering. He has been recognized, among others, with the 2022 Galician Medal of Research. He was head of the department of applied physics at USC, advisor to the Spanish ministry of science for the creation of the International Iberian Nanothecnology Lab (INL), member of the committee of experts of the Galician government on Covid-19 and member of the commission of experts of the government of Spain for the reform of the official time.

He is also active in science communication in mass media (television, radio, newspapers), writing books or leading several activities, such as the Program ConCiencia, developed with the participation of Nobel laureates. He has been recognized, among others, with the 2023 Prize of the Confederation of Scientific Societies of Spain for the dissemination of science.

Summary

La transmisión de información científica al gran público nunca ha sido fácil, pero la situación se ha complicado en la última década con la aparición de nuevas dinámicas sociales. Por ejemplo, los grupos negacionistas del cambio climático, terraplanistas y antivacunas son ahora más activos y agresivos, debido a las posibilidades que abren los nuevos canales y redes de comunicación. Analizaremos este escenario con algunos ejemplos agudos.

Se explorará además, desde una perspectiva personal, un caso en el cual el debate científico interdisciplinar ha permeado de modo notable en la opinión pública: la comunicación de investigaciones que atañen a la normativa horaria oficial en España, un campo en el cual es difícil a veces la transmisión a la ciudadanía de informaciones basadas en datos.

Francisco Savall

Title

Experimental research in Physics teaching. Give me a fulcrum and I shall solve second order equations

La investigación experimental en la enseñanza de la Física. Dadme un punto de apoyo y resolveré ecuaciones de segundo grado

Bio

Francisco Savall Alemany has a degree in Physics by the University of Valencia (UV) and a PhD by the University of Alicante (UA). He has been awarded in 2023 with the RSEF-Fundación BBVA Award for Physics Teaching and Dissemination in the category of Secondary Education. He currently teaches Physics and Chemistry at IES Veles e Vents at Grau de Gandia. For more than 10 years he has combined his work as a high school teacher with teaching and research as associate professor at the University of Alicante, being member of the Research Group in Didactics of Experimental Sciences.
His main field of research is the development of innovative materials for Physics teaching, many of which have been published in prestigious national and international journals. As a result of this work, he has given teacher training courses aimed at improving Physics teaching in secondary and high school.
Francisco Savall also carries out physics dissemination activities. In this field, he participates assiduously with his students in the Experimenta Science Fair, in which they have been awarded in 2024, he has published several dissemination science articles and is member of the editorial board of the science dissemination magazine DAU AL DEU.

Francisco Savall Alemany es Licenciado en Física por la Universitat de València (UV) y Doctor por la Universidad de Alicante (UA). Ha sido galardonado en 2023 con el Premio RSEF-Fundación BBVA a la Enseñanza y Divulgación de la Física en la modalidad de Enseñanzas Medias. Actualmente es profesor de Física y Química en el IES Veles e Vents del Grau de Gandia. Durante más de 10 años ha compaginado su trabajo como profesor de instituto con la docencia e investigación como profesor asociado en la Universidad de Alicante, en el Grupo de Investigación en Didáctica de las Ciencias Experimentales.
Su principal campo de investigación es la elaboración de materiales innovadores para la enseñanza de la Física, muchos de los cuales han sido publicados en revistas de reconocido prestigio nacional e internacional. Fruto de este trabajo, ha impartido cursos de formación del profesorado cuyo objetivo es la mejora de la enseñanza de la Física en secundaria y bachillerato. Francisco Savall también lleva a cabo actividades de divulgación de la física.
En este campo, participa asiduamente con sus estudiantes en la Feria-Concurso Experimenta, en la que han sido premiados en 2024, y ha publicado diversos artículos de divulgación y forma parte del consejo de redacción de la revista de divulgación DAU AL DEU.

Summary

La investigación ha reconocido la importancia de competencias como la argumentación, el pensamiento crítico y la resolución de problemas en la enseñanza de la Física, llevando a los estudiantes no solo a aprender contenidos científicos sino también qué es la ciencia y a desarrollar actividades propias de la investigación científica.

Presentaremos diversos trabajos experimentales que se han implementado en el aula en cursos introductorios de Física, fácilmente adaptables tanto a estudios universitarios como de bachillerato. Abarcaremos campos diversos: el principio de Arquímedes, la espectroscopía y la física cuántica o la termodinámica de los motores térmicos. Analizaremos, además, el impacto que han tenido estas propuestas sobre el aprendizaje de los estudiantes en el aula.

Roberto GÓMEZ

Title

Energy transition in the European continent. The role of the physicists in this context

Bio

Roberto Gómez Calvet is a permanent lecturer in the business department of the European University of Valencia. He also lectured for 14 years at the University of Valencia and works regularly with the Polytechnic University of Valencia and the University of La Laguna. In the research field, his current lines of work deal with energy and the environment together with efficiency models using non-parametric techniques. He has written various articles and chapters of books about eco-efficiency, promoting variable renewable energies and fitting them into the electrical grid. His most recent papers concern the energy transition in Spain, published in high-impact journals including Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Applied Energy, Renewable Energy, European Physical Journal Plus and Energies. He is an honorary senior research fellow at De Montfort University (Leicester, UK).

He trained as an industrial engineer, specialising in energy techniques, at the Polytechnic University of Valencia, holds a degree in Economics and Business from the University of Valencia, an MBA from APD and a doctorate in Economics from the Jaume I University of Castelló. In the professional sphere, it should be highlighted that since the 90s he has held responsible positions in different companies in the Valencia region. He continues to combine his academic and professional careers, seeking points of convergence and cooperation between university, business and society. Also, in recent years he has been active in the media, including press, TV and radio, informing about matters relating to energy, the environment and decarbonisation of the economy.

Summary

Since its inception, the European Union has had energy scarcity as one of the most important problems. During the last two decades a significant effort has been carried out to develop an energy transition base on the shift in energy production, distribution, and consumption models not only to reduce dependence from third countries, but also to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. This transition is based on the search of new energy sources, the electrification and digitalization of all processes and sectors of the economy, aiming to achieve decarbonization through the use of non-polluting energy resources.

In this context, the role of physicists is paramount, as they can make significant contributions to the energy transition in several ways:

Research and Innovation: Physicists can contribute to the development of new technologies and solutions that facilitate the transition to renewable energy sources. This could include research into more efficient solar panels, wind turbines, or energy storage solutions.

Education and communication: By improving global scientific literacy through physics education, physicists can help the public understand the importance and implications of the energy transition.

Policy Development: Physicists can use their expertise to inform policy decisions related to energy use and climate change. They can provide valuable insights into the potential impacts of different energy policies.

Advocacy: Physicists can advocate for greater investment in physics research and innovation, emphasizing the role of physics in addressing climate change and transitioning to a sustainable energy future.

Jorge Méndez

Title

Blas Cabrera y las “tierras raras”. Una de los padres de la física cuántica

Bio

Professor of Applied Physics at Universidad de La Laguna (Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain) and researcher in luminescent materials with “rare earth” elements and in the applications of nanotechnology and photonics to renewable energies (solar energy, “green hydrogen”, “artificial photosynthesis”). Principal Investigator of the “MAGEC-REEsearch” Project (“Materials for Advanced Energy Generation in the Canary Islands and exploration of rare-earth resources”), financed by the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness of Spain and by the Research Agency of the of Canary Islands Government.

The project is focused, on the one hand, on exploring the “rare earth” mineral resources in the Canary Islands and, on the other hand, on the development of photonic applications of the latest generation, from the improvement of photocatalysis and generation of solar fuels to the development of luminescent security inks. He has 100 scientific publications in prestigious international journals, three six-year periods of research, as well as three industrial patents on luminescent nanomaterials with technological applications. President of the International Organizing Committee of the SHIFT series of international conferences on light applications in renewable energy and biomedicine, www.shifttenerife.com. Responsible for the weekly scientific dissemination program “Pura Ciencia” that has been broadcast on the air in prime time in the morning within the program “Hoy por Hoy” Tenerife (Cadena SER Radio Club Tenerife) and “Hoy por Hoy El Drago” (SER Las Palmas) since July 2021 and continues today. Scientific disseminator and organizer of scientific culture events, among others, around the figure of Blas Cabrera Felipe, physicist considered “father of Spanish physics.”

Olga Smirnova

Title

Ultrafast molecular chirality: a topological connection

Bio

Olga Smirnova graduated from the Physics Department of the Moscow State University in 1996 and received her PhD there in 2000, continuing as assistant professor. In 2003 she received the Lise-Meitner Fellowship of Austrian Science Foundation (FWF) and joined the Vienna University of Technology as a postdoctoral fellow. In 2005 she moved to the National Research Council (NRC) in Ottawa, Canada, where she became a permanent staff scientist in 2006.

In 2009 she received the SAW award of the Leibniz society and moved to the Max Born Institute to establish her own Strong Field Theory research group, which she continues to lead. Since 2016 she also holds full professorship at the Technical University Berlin. In 2010 Olga has received the Karl-Scheel-Preis of Physikalischen Gesellschaft zu Berlin, in 2020 the Ahmed Zewail Award in Ultrafast Science & Technology of the American Chemical Society and in 2022 Mildred Dresselhaus Prize. Olga’s current research focuses on imaging and control of ultrafast electron dynamics in atoms, solid state materials, and molecules, especially chiral molecules. Her research has been recently supported by the Horizon Europe ERC advanced grant.

Ursula Keller

Title

Dual-comb generation from a single laser cavity

Bio

Ursula Keller, a tenured physics professor at ETH Zurich since 1993, directed the NCCR MUST ultrafast science program from 2010 to 2022. She earned her Diplom from ETH Zurich in 1984 and a Ph.D. from Stanford University in 1989. As a Member of Technical Staff (MTS) at Bell Labs from 1989 to 1993, she launched her independent research career. Keller co-founded Time-Bandwidth Products (was acquired by JDSU in 2014), and K2 Photonics in 2023. Since 2022, she has served on the supervisory board of Jenoptik.

Her research is dedicated to advancing ultrafast science and technology with advancements in ultrafast solid-state and semiconductor lasers, utilizing semiconductor saturable absorber mirrors (SESAMs) and achieving ultrashort pulse generation in the one to two optical-cycle regime with frequency comb generation and stabilization. She applied these lasers to conduct attosecond experiments testing fundamental processes in quantum mechanics and pioneered the attoclock technique.

Her awards include the Swiss Science Prize Marcel Benoist (2022), OSA Frederic Ives Medal (2020), SPIE Gold Medal (2020), IEEE Edison Medal (2019), OSA Charles H. Townes Award (2015), EPS Senior Prize (2011), and two ERC advanced grants (2012 and 2018). Keller has supervised 94 Ph.D. students, authored 516 journal articles, and holds an h-index of 122 with over 55,000 citations according to Google Scholar. In 2022, she authored a new graduate textbook on "Ultrafast Lasers" published by Springer Verlag.

Irene Abril

Title

Women's leadership in Physics

Bio

Irene is a PhD candidate in Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics at the University of Cambridge, specialising in cosmology. Her research uses the lensing signal imprinted on the cosmic microwave background to learn more about structure growth in the Universe. She works as part of the Atacama Cosmology Telescope and Simons Observatory collaborations.

Irene holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Physics from Universidad Complutense de Madrid and a Master in Advanced Studies in Astrophysics from the University of Cambridge, graduating top of her class in both degrees. During this time, she also interned at various institutes across Asia and Europe, including the University of Oxford (UK), the Max-Planck-Institute for Astrophysics (Germany) and Academia Sinica Insitute for Astronomy and Astrophysics (Taiwan).

In 2022, she was the winner of the V WONNOW Women in Science and Technology Awards. As a strong advocate for increasing the number of women in STEM, Irene participates in numerous outreach events and gives interviews in local media.

Verónica Sanz

Bio

Veronica Sanz is a full Professor of at the University of Valencia (Spain), and previously at Sussex (UK). Originally from Valencia, she worked at MIT, Harvard, Yale, Boston, York and Durham universities, besides her hometown university and CERN (Geneva). 

Her main research line is on Particle Physics, to answer questions such as the genesis of our Universe, and what it is made of. To pursue these research goals, mathematical models need to be developed and contrasted with Nature's behaviour in experiments. This comparison often involves the use of sophisticated numerical techniques, such as AI.

Besides her activities in fundamental physics, Sanz works on broader questions like the understanding of intricate ecological interactions, the polarization of political discourse or the understanding of Art from an AI perspective.

Inmaculada Pérez Pérez

Bio

Inmaculada holds a B.Sc. in Physics from Universidad de Sevilla and an M.Sc. in Photonics from the Friedrich-Schiller Universität Jena, Germany, where she specialized in nanophotonics and nonlinear optics. Currently, she works as a scientific assistant at the Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, where she merges the fields of quantum optics and nanoplasmonics to understand the generation of entangled photon pairs, crucial for quantum technologies.

Dedicated to fostering a diverse scientific network, Inmaculada has been an active member of RSEF's Students Group (Grupo de Estudiantes) since its foundation in 2018. She has held various positions within the group's directive board -including secretary, treasurer, and vice president- and is also engaged in other renowned international scientific societies such as Optica and SPIE. This experience has provided her with a broad overview of the evolving role of young physicists in the 21st century, who increasingly navigate multidisciplinary teams and bridge the gap between academia and industry.

Pedro Miguel Echenique Landiríbar

Bio

President of the Donostia International Physics Center (DIPC), he is Professor of Condensed Matter Physics at the University of the Basque Country, Honorary President of Jakiunde (Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters), founding President of the Nanogune Cooperative Research Center (CIC) and of the Materials Physics Center (MPC). He holds a degree in Physics from the University of Navarra, a Ph.D. from the Universities of Cambridge (1976) and Autónoma de Barcelona (1977), a postdoc at Oak Ridge National and a Nordita fellow in Lund and Copenhagen. He was Minister of Education and Culture and spokesman of the Basque Government (1980-1984).

Member of the Royal Academy of Sciences, the Academy of Sciences and Letters of Milan and the Académie Royale de Belgique. He has been overseas fellow at Churchill College and visiting professor at the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge. Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS) and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (FAAAS). He has been a member of the Trilateral Commission (1996-2015).

He is the author of more than four hundred publications in specialized journals and books. He has received several awards, among others Euskadi, Dupont, Príncipe de Viana de la Cultura, Max Planck, Premio Príncipe de Asturias de Investigación Científica y Técnica, Iberdrola, Nacional Blas Cabrera. He has been distinguished with the Grand Cross of Alfonso X the Wise, the Gold Medal of Navarra, of Guipúzcoa, of the Royal Society of Physics, of the University of the Basque Country and of the University of the Basque Country.

Itziar Otegui

Bio

Itziar Otegui, Outreach Manager at CIC nanoGUNE since 2012, has coordinated the design and implementation of the Gender Equality Plan at the research center. She graduated in Humanities and Communication at the University of Deusto, and earned a postgraduate degree in Science Journalism and Science Communication from the UNED.

She is specialized in corporate communication and science communication. In addition to managing the corporate communication and outreach programs of the research center, she has participated in the creation and coordination of several outreach and STEAM education projects, such as 10alamenos9 and Nanokomik. She participated in the creation of the Emakumeak Zientzian (Women in Science) initiative in 2017, and has coordinated several of its editions. At nanoGUNE she also coordinates the co-curricular training of research staff, participated in the constitution of the Gender Equality Committee of the center and is responsible for the implementation of the GEP.   

Jorge Bravo

Bio

Jorge Bravo-Abad is currently a professor (Profesor Titular) in the Condensed Matter Theory Department and the Condensed Matter Physics Center (IFIMAC) at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (UAM). He earned his Ph.D. in Physics at UAM in 2006 and conducted postdoctoral research at MIT from 2007 to 2010. Returning to UAM as a Ramón y Cajal Fellow in 2010, he became a faculty member of the Condensed Matter Theory Department in 2016. He served as a Visiting Associate Professor (Fulbright Scholar) in the Physics Department of MIT during the 2018-2019 academic year.

His research group focuses on discovering fundamentally new concepts, theoretical approaches, and physical phenomena at the crossroads of condensed matter physics, materials science, and machine learning. Committed to education, Jorge Bravo-Abad has been instrumental in integrating artificial intelligence into the scientific curriculum at UAM. In 2020, he founded the Spanish Network for AI in Condensed Matter Physics and Materials Science, uniting over 30 academic and industrial research groups to foster the adoption and innovation of AI in condensed matter physics and materials science.  

José Luis Sánchez Gómez

Title

WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT THE MICROPHYSICAL PROCESSES THAT TAKE PLACE WITHIN HAILSTORMS?

Bio

Born in Segovia, he earned his Ph.D. in Physics at University of Valladolid in 1983. Since 2003 he has been Professor of Applied Physics at the University of León. He has been a professor at the University of Valladolid, a visiting professor at the U. Paul Sabatier (Toulouse, France) and at the U. of Barcelona (Spain) and has also taught doctoral degrees at three universities in Brazil. He has been the director of the thesis of 15 Ph. Ds.

He is the main PI of a scientific research group whose main objective is the meteorology of severe weather situations, a leading group in hail precipitation research. Likewise, the group has specialized in aeronautical meteorology in which it has achieved some milestones related to aeronautical safety.

He has published more than 120 scientific articles in international journals and has more than 200 communications at conferences. PI of 22 R&D&i projects earned in competitive calls and in more than 50 research contracts with national and foreign companies and public entities.

He has been Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Atmospheric Research for 10 years. He has received some awards and decorations, among which I highlight the cross for aeronautical merit awarded by the Ministry of Defense.

He is currently director of the Environment Research Institute of the University of Leon, vice president of the Spanish Meteorological Association (AME) and until December 2023 has been president of the Spanish-Portuguese federation of meteorological societies (Flismet).  

Claudio Zeni

Bio

Claudio Zeni is currently a Senior Researcher at Microsoft Research Cambridge, contributing to the AI4Science initiative.
He received his Ph.D. in computational physics at King’s College London in 2020, and subsequently worked as a post-doctoral researcher at the International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA)  before joining Microsoft Research in 2022.

His research is focused on leveraging artificial intelligence to broaden our toolkit for addressing environmental issues, specifically within the field of materials science. His work involves the development of methods for discovering new materials, understanding their atomic-level behavior, and predicting their properties. His expertise includes machine learning force fields, generative models for crystals, and molecular dynamics simulations.

As an active participant in the scientific community, Claudio has organized several conferences on machine learning for materials science and has had the opportunity to present his research in many conferences around the world.

Jonathan Home

Title

The trapped-ion path to quantum computing

Bio

Jonathan Home has been a Professor at ETH Zurich since 2010, when he established the Trapped-Ion Quantum Information group. He moved to ETH Zurich following post-doctoral research at NIST Boulder, working on a Lindemann Fellowship in the group of Dave Wineland. His undergraduate and graduate studies were performed in Oxford, the latter under the supervision of Prof. Andrew Steane.

Jonathan Home's research focusses on quantum state engineering and control with atomic systems, primarily trapped ions. The group has produced pioneering work across a range of areas, including first demonstrations of continuous feedback stabilization of entangled states based on in-sequence measurements, dissipative protocols for state stabilization, and the first demonstration of full quantum error correction in an ion trap system, using motional states of a single ion. This work has been accompanied by a focus on advanced technology for scaling ion trap systems, including new methods for constructing ion traps, pioneering implementations of quantum gates using integrated photonics and the first loading and quantum manipulation of ions in a new architecture for trapped-ion control based on microfabricated Penning traps. The TIQI group have recently also managed to put barium atoms on display to the public, in a new permanent exhibit at the hands-on Technorama science museum in Winterthur.

Jonathan's research work has been recognized by a number of prizes, including the 2019 Landauer-Bennett award of the APS and the ETH Zürich Latsis prize. In 2023 he was named as an APS Fellow. Jonathan has also been recognised for his contributions in teaching and outreach, including the Golden Owl of ETH Zürich and being named as a TED Fellow.

Alessandra Buonnano

Title

Illuminating the Dark Universe with Gravitational Waves

Bio

Alessandra Buonanno is a director at the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics. She specializes in modeling gravitational waves from binary systems of black holes and neutron stars, aiming to address open questions in cosmology, astrophysics, and gravity. Her research on waveform modeling has been instrumental in the detection and physical interpretation of gravitational waves with LIGO and Virgo detectors. Buonanno pioneered and greatly contributed to the successful synergistic approach of combining numerical-relativity techniques with analytical-relativity methods with the goal of developing the most accurate and efficient waveform models for gravitational-wave observations. 

Alessandra Buonanno studied theoretical physics in Pisa, and held faculty positions in Paris and at the University of Maryland, where she became professor in 2010. She is a Principal Investigator of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration and a Research-Unit Head of the Einstein Telescope Collaboration. She is a member of the LISA Consortium Board. For her contributions to gravitational-wave research, she was awarded several prizes, including the 2018 Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize – the most prestigious research prize in Germany. In 2021 she was co-awarded the Galileo Galilei Medal, the Dirac Medal, and the Balzan Prize.

She received the 2022 Tomalla Prize for her outstanding work on gravitational-wave physics, and the 2023 Oskar Klein Medal. She is an elected member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, the US National Academy of Sciences, the Italian National Academy Lincei, and the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities. Buonanno is a Fellow of the International Society on General Relativity and Gravitation and of the American Physical Society. She holds a research professorship at the University of Maryland, and honorary professorships at the Humboldt University in Berlin, and at the University of Potsdam.

Clivia Sotomayor Torres

Title

Phonons in nanostructured matter

Bio

Prof. Dr. Clivia. M Sotomayor Torres obtained her PhD in Physics in 1984 from the University of Manchester, UK. She held tenured academic appointments at Saint Andrews and Glasgow universities in the UK, a C4 professorship at Wuppertal University in Germany and was a research professor at the National university of Ireland University College Cork (Tyndall National Institute). From 2007 to 2023 she was an ICREA research professor and group leader of the Phononic and Photonic Nanostructures group at the Catalan Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology in Spain. Clivia received awards from the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the Nuffield Foundation and an Amelia Earhart Fellowship from ZONTA International (USA). She carries out research in the science and engineering of phononic nanostructures, nanophotonics and thermal transport. She was a guest professor at the P. Sabatier Univ. Toulouse, at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Sweden and the Mittlesten-Scheid Guest Professor at the University of Wuppertal in Germany.

She has supervised over 20 PhD theses and more than 60 postdoctoral researchers.
She has published extensively and has been cited over 12 000 times.
Since 1989 Clivia has been, and still is, an active participant in European level research and has coordinated several projects. She has held several commissions of trust including membership of the Danish National Research Council board, vice-chair of the Scientific Board of the Silicon Austria Laboratory and co-Chair and Chair of the Advisory Group of the EU Future and Emerging Technologies. In 2020 she was elected to the Academia Europaea and since 2021 she is a holder of an ERC Advanced Grant carrying out research on phonons for information and communication Technologies.
Since September 2023 she is the Director General of the International Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory (INL) in Brage, Portugal.